A recent study shows a projected bump from 2007 in IT spend in specific automated and transformative IT management software, including areas to improve compliance and security measures.

With the
U.S. either in, or almost in, a recession, it’s no surprise that most companies
are expected to spend this year only about 5 percent more than they did last
year on information technology, according to various analysts’ estimates. But
what about IT organizations—how much are they planning to invest on IT
management software this year?

Surprisingly,
although IT groups are not exactly ready to spend like bands of drunken
sailors, they plan to boost spending on software to manage IT functions by an
average of 9.3 percent more than in 2007, according to a January report by AMR Research. “We are going to start
seeing more investment in automation to transform IT processes,” predicts
Dennis Gaughan, research director at AMR Research in Boston.

The
survey, which focused not on the overall IT budget, but specifically on
software, hardware and services for IT governance, management, operations, and
development, polled 405 respondents in IT management worldwide. Taken as a
whole, those responding said they typically spend one-third of their IT budget
on IT for IT.

“These
are the tools and the technologies IT needs to spend on to run the
organization,” Gaughan explains. “These are IT management’s plans for
spending.”

Topping
the list of priorities for IT buyers is improving security and compliance, with
49 percent of organizations in the U.S. listing IT security as “one of
their top two IT business process priorities” for 2008.

“IT
organizations need to think about risk more strategically than in the past,”
Gaughan observes. “Much of the emphasis on security spending is being driven by
the increase in regulations, requiring companies to do more to protect customer
information and guard against the kinds of highly publicized data breaches that
have occurred.”

What’s
more, the heightened sense of concern over security of customer files and other
sensitive data has caused greater organization-wide scrutiny over the IT
organization’s information security programs. “This has become a boardroom
topic,” Gaughan adds. “CIOs now see it as something affecting the entire IT
organization, not just the security staff.”

The other
area poised for growth is systems to help automate companies’ adherence to the
widely adopted ITIL standards for improving IT internal processes. Companies
typically use the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to
define the scale and scope of standardized work processes for systems
operations. ITIL establishes a common basis for the way IT projects are
undertaken and managed.

Many
large IT organizations, such as General Motors and General Electric, either
have already embraced ITIL, or are working to make parts of the framework of
standards their own as a means to help improve IT processes. “Based on
conversations with out customers, I’d say about half are adopting ITIL or are
in the planning stages,” Gaughan says. “And now we are starting to see ITIL in
more midsize corporations as well.”

“ITIL has
been around for a number of years, but lately we have seen a broad culture and
change in the way IT is managed as more IT organizations are moving to ITIL to
help them redefine their processes,” Gaughan points out. “We are going to start
seeing more investment in automation that helps enable the transformation of IT
processes.”

The
survey results bear this out, as IT operations management was the second most
frequently cited priority for IT groups’ investment in 2008, with 35 percent of
U.S. IT organizations citing it as one of the top two business priorities.
Gaughan says the prime driver behind this emphasis on improving IT operations
is cost controls. Exactly 50 percent of respondents worldwide cited
infrastructure management as one of the top three most labor intensive IT
activities—more than any other IT activity citied.

AMR is so bullish on IT management software, in fact, that the research
firm has coined a term, “IT Resource Planning,” to cover what is fast becoming
a suite of IT management software applications. Leading vendors in this
emerging market, Gaughan says, include BMC, Computer Associates, Hewlett
Packard, and IBM.

A typical
software package that Gaughan says IT groups are likely to invest in this year
is the configuration management database (CMDB). “This is a system to capture
information about the various IT assets, including software, servers, and
network devices,” Gaughan says. “The idea is that a network manager can use the
CMDB to look at, say, a router that is down and see exactly how it impacts the
rest of the IT operations. It’s a system of record for the entire IT
infrastructure.”

Other areas likely to see increased IT spending
are systems to manage service-oriented architecture, vendors, and IT investment
itself. “One of CIOs’ primary areas of concern is how to get better visibility
of their spending,” Gaughan says. “They want a better understanding of where
their money is going.”

Doug Bartholomew is a career journalist who has covered information technology for more than 15 years. A former senior editor at IndustryWeek and InformationWeek, his freelance features have appeared in New York magazine and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. He has a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University.